Reading a news report about a church camp counselor in Missouri convicted of molesting children, Amy Smith’s thoughts shot back more than 20 years.

To the day she learned John Langworthy, a seminary student and youth music minister who had befriended her family, and even stayed for a time in her home, was accused of molesting young boys at the church.

Although ministers at Prestonwood forced Langworthy to leave that church in 1989, they never reported the alleged molestation to police.

Langworthy would not be charged with a crime until 2011, a quarter century after returning home to Mississippi, when young boys he’d molested here in the early 1980s had grown into men and came forward at Smith’s urging with their stories.

Langworthy’s attorney, Jeff Rimes, said Langworthy did not want to comment for this story.